


A Fine Feathered Mess

by Flutiebear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age Holiday Cheer, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 16:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/pseuds/Flutiebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merrill gives Carver a pet. Hilarity ensues. Written for hollyand as part of the 2014 Dragon Age Holiday Cheer gift exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fine Feathered Mess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollyand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyand/gifts).



> Hollyand requested Carver/Merrill, with "a happily ever after". Please, how could I not jump at that? Talk about Flutie catnip! Of course, what was originally intended to just be a short drabble quickly spiraled into something a little deeper. You might even say it "flew out of control" on me. HAR HAR. 
> 
> Happy holidays, holly! You're an absolute dear, and as Fenris would say, I enjoy following you :D. Hope you like!
> 
> (ETA: Thanks to jkateel for all the helpful info on chicken behavior lol)

"Carver," said Merrill, "I've decided you need a pet."

In retrospect, that really should have been his first warning.

Hands behind her back, Merrill struggled to maintain her grip on something unseen and, apparently, very wiggly.

That should have been his second.

" _Vhenan,"_ he said, the word tumbling, still awkward, from his chapped lips, "you don't have to—"

Merrill cut him off with a wave of her hand and, in so doing, almost dropped her burden. "Nonsense," she said, readjusting. "You do nice things for me all the time. Let me do a nice thing for you."

Whatever she concealed squirmed, violently, and Merrill bent nearly in two to follow. Automatically Carver reached out a hand. For once, it didn't shake. Almost. "Do you need help with that?"

She jumped back from his touch. "No peeking!"

"I wasn't—" He sighed. Whenever Merrill got that determined set to her jaw, Carver knew there was no arguing with her. "Whatever. No peeking. But what brought this on?"

She shifted from foot to foot, and did not look up at Carver when she spoke. "It's just—well—I know how lonely you've been lately."

Lonely. Right. _That_ was his problem.

"Not _that_ lonely," he replied as warmly as he could manage.

The attempt made her smile, at least. "Don't be contrary, _ma vhenan_. I know you, and I know you need company, more than I can give. Besides," she continued before he could protest. "You Fereldans need your companion animals. You're lost without them."

" _Us_ Fereldans?" He snorted. "What does that make you?"

" _Dalish,_ " she replied, as if it was the stupidest question she'd ever heard.

Actually, it probably was. Carver grimaced. Almost ten years later, and he still couldn't help sticking his foot in his mouth around Merrill. It was comforting, in a way, to know that some things would never change.

Behind her back there came a soft murmur, and for a brief moment, Carver had the sharp, foolish hope that Merrill had found him a mabari. But that would be impossible. You couldn't find a good Fereldan breed this far north; Marchers had too much Orlesian in them yet to appreciate a proper hound.

Still, he couldn't deny that he would love a mabari. A real man's hound; one like Garrett's, perhaps –except bigger, of course, with more fur and drool; and his, all _his_ …

"Here you go!" Merrill thrust her hands in front of her.

Carver's eyes went wide. In her grip was a squirming, squawking, fluffing—

"Say hello to Feathers," she said, beaming.

"Hello," said Carver, because, well, what else could he say?

The chicken's beady eyes stared into him—no, _through_ him, as if he weren't even there.

"Say hello, Feathers," Merrill commanded.

Obediently, Feathers clucked. As chickens do. Because – and Carver was still struggling to understand this part – Merrill had gotten him a _chicken._

"Isn't she just beautiful?" Merrill grinned down at the bird cradled in her arms. "She's a Korcari Yardbird. I saw her and, at once, I thought of you. Here." She shoved the chicken at him. "You should hold her. She's yours, after all."

Awkwardly, Carver took the bird into his arms, where at once it began to squirm and squirm in a quest for freedom. Carver wished there was some polite way he could do the same.

The sight of the two of them, however, made Merrill clap her hands together. She squealed in glee. "Look, she likes you!"

Something warm trickled down Carver's forearm.

With a curse, he let the bird go. The wretched creature flapped as it hit the ground, loosing a few downy feathers that floated to the ground like snow. Then it set about pecking the dirt behind Merrill's feet.

If Carver didn't know any better, he'd have said the bird was just as displeased about this arrangement as he was. The thought needled. A chicken wasn't allowed to be disappointed in him. It just _wasn't._

"Do you like her back?" asked Merrill.

"I—" Carver cleared his throat, then made the mistake of meeting her gaze. It was so open, so hopeful, that whatever he had been about to say died in his throat. "Merrill," he said instead. "Why in Thedas would you see a chicken and think of me?"

She shrugged. "Because they're big and cute and they eat anything you set in front of them?"

Carver felt some -- but by no means all – of his irritation ebb away. "Maker, why not a druffalo while you were at it?" he muttered.

Merrill wrinkled her nose. "Druffalos aren't nearly so snuggly as chickens. Obviously. Plus ,they take forever to tell a joke."

"What—How—" Carver shook his head. "Nevermind. I believe you."

Merrill peered at Carver closely. "Did you want a druffalo, _ma vhenan_? They're still selling calves in the square, but I'm not sure where we'd keep one." The chicken began to nuzzle Merrill's bare foot, or perhaps nibble at her toe; it was hard to tell the difference. "But you're right. Maybe we _should_ get a calf, too. That way, Feathers has a friend for when you're out on a job."

Carver had the sudden image of a full-sized druffalo pecking at Merrill's pants. "No, no, just the chicken will suit," he assured her. "I'm only surprised, that's all. I didn't expect," he struggled for the right word and came up with nothing, " _this._ "

Merrill nodded gravely. She knelt to pet the top of Feathers's head. "I know things have been hard, _"_ she said, "what with the Order gone and your brother off to Ansburg and—you know."

"I know." His cheeks burned. Merrill never mentioned the word 'addiction' -- she was too kind-hearted -- but they both knew Carver's shame for what it was. For years, nearly all his pay and even some of hers had gone to the lyrium dealers. But they'd been visiting Kirkwall less and less often, as the remaining ex-Templars either left or died from their withdrawal symptoms, which left Carver increasingly desperate. Over the past few months, his thirst for dust had brought him so low that if he'd had any dignity left, he'd leave Kirkwall at once and save Merrill the trouble of keeping him. But Carver didn't have any dignity left. He only had Merrill. "But what does a chicken do to make any of that better?"

"Plenty!" she insisted. "She can cuddle your toes, and chase the rats, and she'll keep our stoop clean of bugs, I'm sure." She looked up at him, eyes large and liquid. "Do you not like her?"

"Of course I like her," Carver lied.  

The chicken did not reply in kind. It just looked up at Carver. It looked and looked, and it did not blink.

 _It could have been worse,_ he told himself as he met its dead-eyed stare. _It could have been a wyvern._

***

It wasn't as if Carver hadn't ever been around chickens before. Back in Lothering, the Hawkes had had a good-sized coop, with enough hens to keep them in eggs throughout the long winters.

But it had been Bethany's job to manage the birds, not his. She'd been good at it, too; she'd sing to them while they gathered around her ankles, bobbing and clucking and scurrying all about. Bethany had made them all very happy. Carver, meanwhile, had only made them vaguely bored.

Feathers wasn't like those old yardbirds, however, which was both good and bad, but mostly bad. She was grumpy and sullen and pecked at any finger left outstretched for too long. Merrill wouldn't hear of leaving her outside at night, so while they slept, the beast would root in his clothes and molt on their pillows. She took baths in their water barrel. She pecked holes in their bread. And she steadfastly refused to lay any eggs, which Carver understood for the personal insult it was.

Plus: the little monster could run. And shit. Often at the same time.

Carver had served at both Ostagar and the Gallows; he thought he'd seen every atrocity the Maker could conceive. But that was before he found what Feathers had left for him in his boots.

"I wish you were a dog," he told the creature as he attempted to scrape out the congealed goo with his lyrium dagger. "At least a dog has the sense to only crap in one spot."

"She does," offered Aveline, who watched Carver work with great interest. She held back a smile, but just barely. "From what I see, she only craps on _your_ things."

Carver inspected the room around him. "Maker's balls, you're right." He made a disgusted noise. "Bethany would've been so proud."

Aveline chuckled. Feathers, perhaps drawn by the cluck-like sound, ambled over to her and leaned against her leg. Aveline's hand fell to meet her.

"You complain, but I'd have thought any reminder of Lothering would be welcome to you," she said, idly smoothing the chicken's hackles with her thumb.

"Some things are better left to memories," he grunted. His knife struck paydirt, and a chip of something foul went flying across the room. It landed on a battered, dusty chest that hadn't been opened in months.

They both fell silent then, Aveline watching him work. "How are you doing?" she asked after a long moment had passed.

His hands tightened on the knife. "Fine."

"Just fine?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?" Her gaze, as hard as the chicken's, bored into him.

"I know my own mind, thanks," he snapped.

She sighed. "Ass."

Carver shrugged and dug harder into the boot. Better Aveline think him an ass than the alternative.

"It's just—if you need anything—"

He looked up at her sharply. "Why? What has Merrill told you?"

"Nothing," Aveline replied quickly. Too quickly. "Nothing at all."

Grumbling, Carver bent his head back to his work. "As I said, I'm fine," he said. "I don't need anything, not from you, not from anyone."

"But—"

"But what?"

"But it would be alright if you did." Her eyes were soft and kind and not at all like how they usually were. Carver found he couldn't look into them for very long. "It's not easy, doing what you've done."

Carver exhaled, his hands working the knife with hard, choppy strokes. "And what is it that have I done?"

"You know." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Given up lyrium."

He chuckled bitterly. "Haven't given up drake-spit. Just can't find any, is all."

A bit of Aveline's gauntlet caught on Feathers's plumage, and she squawked. Carver sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, while Aveline stroked Feathers until she calmed down.

"You sell yourself short, Carver," she said once the bird had settled again. "It's out there. If you really wanted it, you could find it. Not in good places, or with good people, but you'd manage."

She was right, of course. But it was one thing to pay three sovereigns to an Orzammar dealer for a half-full philter every few weeks, and another thing entirely to secure regular dust by hitching himself to the black market. When he and his brother had left Athenril's employ, he'd made a promise to himself that he'd never go back there. He'd never again stoop so low. He didn't intend to break that promise now, no matter how bad his symptoms became.

A man had to have limits, a line in the earth he didn't cross. His father had taught him that, and it was important to honor the memory. Since Carver wasn't a mage like his brother was, Father's lessons were pretty much all of the man he had left.

But he couldn't say any of that to Aveline. She wouldn't understand. Or, worse, she would, and she'd become insufferable about it. She had once been married to a Templar, after all.

So instead Carver said the first thing that came to mind. "If I went back on dust, how ever would we feed Feathers?" He nodded at the bird, who groomed her wing and appeared unconcerned with the perilous balance in which her dinner hung. "The beast eats ten times her body weight in a week. She'd have to eat my boots instead of just crapping in them."

Aveline chuckled. "You know, the older you get, the more you sound like your brother."

"Stuff my brother," he grumbled. "I bet he'd probably even get on with this damned bird. He always did have a thing for feathers."

Aveline smiled.

"Ah, now _there's_ the Carver I know." She stood and began adjusting her gauntlets. "I ought to get back to the Keep. If the Guard has more work to hire out, I'll let you know. In the meantime, take care of your girl."

Carver snorted. "Merrill doesn't need me to take care of her."

"I wasn't talking about Merrill," she said. She knelt and scratched the chicken's back once more. Feathers cooed appreciatively. "Don't you let him boss you about," she said. "If he gives you grief, you have my permission to peck out his eyes."

"They don't actually do that," he felt compelled to say, though for Aveline's benefit or the bird's, he couldn't say.

"Of course not," she said, winking at Feathers.

Feathers, to his knowledge, did not wink back.

***

Carver stabbed into the rafters, hands gripping the broom handle like a broadsword. His arms barely shook, even though it had been almost three weeks since his last philter. Amazing what strength rage could achieve.

"You know if I was still in the Order, I could have you down this instant," he informed Feathers, who was presently at work cleaning her wing on the highest beam. "Just one Smite and you'd be ass over tail feathers like the rest of us."

Feathers murmured apathetically.

"Don't you talk back to me, you stupid bird." He jabbed upwards again, and missed Feathers by several inches. "Don't you know who buys your corn?"

Down came an amused cluck.

"Laugh it up, fluff ball," he growled. "But I'll get you down, one way or another."

Carver grabbed the edge of their dining table and dragged it over to under where Feathers had roosted. He clambered on top. He stood, unsteady. The wood groaned, but it held.

"You're lucky I don't take lyrium anymore," he told her. He crept closer to the bird. "Very lucky." Up on tiptoes he went. "Lucky, lucky, lucky. The luckiest bird in Kirkwall."

When Carver was inches from the bird, he launched himself toward the beam on which she sat. Unperturbed, Feathers flapped out of range.

She didn't even bother to cluck.

Carver's hands, meanwhile, closed on nothing but air. Momentum carried him further than he'd intended, and he pitched forward, falling. His flailing legs knocked the table away, leaving Carver to dangle uselessly from the beam.

As he swayed back and forth like a curtain cord, he met Feathers's gaze.

"Not a word of this to Merrill," he told her. "Not. One. Word."

***

Bethany used to sing to the chickens when she fed them, and though he'd never have admitted it to her, Carver had always had a fondness for her voice. Her songs had had a sweetness to them, even the sad ones.

Carver's voice was not nearly so lovely, but he sang to Feathers at mealtimes anyway. It was important he do so, for reasons he couldn't quite articulate.

 _"And Hessarian, he shed a tear/as that dog laid on the pyre,_ " he sang, his voice cracking on the high notes. "Too bad you've not the same manners."

Feathers stared at him, her eyes black as an abyss.

" _And there's Andraste's mabari/ by the holy prophet's side,"_ he continued. " _In the fight against Tevinter/ that dog would never hide."_ He finished the verse with a flourish, then flung a few rinds of vhenadahl fruit her way.

Feathers clucked appreciatively and devoured them.

With a sigh, he eased himself into a chair by the table. The ache in his bones wasn't as bad today. It hadn't been for several days, actually. The pain came and went like a tide, but lately he'd been having more good days than bad. He wasn't about to question it.

"What a family we make," he said, feeling almost jolly. "An ex-Templar, an ex-First, and now an ex-roast dinner. If we were a game of X's and O's, we'd win."

Head bobbing, Feathers polished off another rind.

" _They say the Maker sent him special/ always loyal, without pride,"_ he continued, watching her peck. " _So he could be the sworn companion/ of the Maker's Holy Bride."_

When he finished, silence fell like a heavy blanket. Carver coughed to break it.

"Sorry about my singing," he said. "It's been a long time since I've had the occasion. Besides, my sister had the voice of the family. She knew lots of songs. More than me, anyway." He sighed. "You'd have liked her. She always did have a way with hens. Maybe they thought she was made of corn, I don't know."

Feathers paused. Then, astonishingly, she abandoned her half-eaten rind and slowly approached him.

For a moment, Carver thought he might be making progress with her, that she might even snuggle his shin, as he'd seen her do so many times with Merrill.

Then Feathers squawked, crapped on his foot and launched herself back into the rafters.

Carver fought back a smile and sang, " _Yes that chicken's the companion/ of the Maker's Holy Bride."_

***

The dreams came, as they always did. Running from Ostagar. Running from Lothering. Bethany's screams; an ogre's laugh. Gamlen in the Gallows courtyard, his brow drawn and heavy. Templar blood dripping from his sword. The tingle of lyrium on his tongue, in his veins. The song he could no longer hear in his waking hours. The silence slowly driving him mad.

Carver woke, shaking, cold from his own sweat. He felt thin, stretched out, like a tunic too worn in the elbows. Merrill curled against him, heavy, warm, his anchor in the dark. And yet, she was too much right now. He needed air. He needed light. He needed—Maker only knew what he needed.

Disentangling himself, he got up and pulled on some trousers and went outside.

The alienage courtyard was still. Peaceful.

No, not peaceful. Deserted. Everyone who lived here could be dead, and Carver would never know.

His breath caught in his throat. Through the leaves of the vhenadahl tree, he could see the swirling hole in the sky, and, for a second, the swirl almost looked like the sails of a windmill.

Suddenly Carver's eyes stung. His vision swam. He collapsed against the wall, slid to the ground, and cradled his head in his hands.

 _"My Maker, know my heart,"_ he whispered. The words did not come to him as easily as they once did. " _Take me from a life of sorrow. Lift me from a world of pain. Judge me—judge me—"_ He stumbled on the final part of the Verse, unable to remember what came next. "Just _judge me,_ I guess. Everybody else does."

Suddenly there came a warm weight against his shins. Soft fluff tickled his bare forearms. Startled, Carver looked up from his hands.

Feathers leaned against him. She neither asked for further affection nor gave it; her head was tilted away, as if Carver were a particularly uninteresting post, just a temporary rest on her way toward greater roosting places.

Carver's shoulders relaxed.

"Thanks," he said, and meant it.

She pecked sullenly at his bare toe.

"Not one word, I promise," he replied.

***

On his good mornings, when there were no merc jobs for him to pick up, Carver would patrol the ruined avenues of Old Town for looters and gangs. He never found any, of course. But it mattered to him to look, all the same.

Merrill refused to bring Feathers down to the relief tents in Darktown, so instead the bird took to following him on his rounds, no matter how many rocks he kicked her way to persuade her otherwise. Somehow, however, his rocks always missed. Carver didn't bother himself overmuch about why that might be.

These days, Old Town was little more than an open pit. The sector had been almost entirely levelled by Anders's attack on the Chantry, and there hadn't been enough money in Lowtown to fix it, so rubble it had remained. Elven children played here occasionally, tilting on the stones, re-enacting the Qunari invasion or the Battle of Kirkwall. Carver was glad that most of them were too young to remember how Old Town had gotten the way it had.

"And over there," he told Feathers, pointing out a heap of still-scorched stone, "that used to be my uncle's house. I lived there for a time, though it's probably safer now as rubble." He chuckled to himself.  
"Oh, and that's where Keran's sister, Macha, lived," he said, gesturing to another ruin. "She made the most delicious biscuits you'd ever had, though she'd always save the lion's share for Paxley. She'd had a thing for him, you see. I wonder where she is now. I wonder where they both are now." Carver scratched his chin, thinking. "I hope ol' Pax is doing well for himself. He was a good man. Bit squirrelly, but good. You'd have liked him, I think. At least his mustache, I'm sure."

Feathers tolerated his monologue without squawking once. Carver took a piece of stale bread from his pouch and tore off a hunk to reward her for her silence.

As she ate, he leaned against one of the larger stones and stretched out the soreness in his shoulders and back. The pain had a way of collecting there; but lately, it hadn't been so bad, only a pale shadow of what it had once been. Maybe because he hadn't taken dust in over three months. The realization made him feel almost nostalgic.

"I always thought I'd be back to Ferelden by now," he said to Feathers. "Not much reason to stay now, what with almost everyone I knew either dead or gone."

Feathers interrupted him with a cluck.

"Sure, Merrill's still here. And Aveline. But that's it, mostly. Even Varric left, can you believe that? Ran off to join some cult in the Frostbacks, the crazy bastard." He shook his head. "Grief has a way of making you do weird things, I guess."

With a sigh, Carver looked around him. Rocks and rubble and not much else. Kirkwall was still a shit hole, no doubt. But after ten years, it had become _his_ shit hole. The clang and din of the bazaar; the tart taste of Corff's finest; the dockside smell of rotten fish – it all had become part of the tapestry of his life, a habit he couldn't seem to break. Carver was a fish out of water who'd forgotten how to swim.

Eventually he'd go back to Ferelden. He and Merrill talked about it sometimes, but always in the far away sense. One day, but not today. Today there were bricks to lay and orphans to feed and looters to dissuade with the business end of a sword. Reconstruction wasn't much for glory, but it was a living, and that was good enough for him.

Funny how his priorities had shifted. Grief had a way of doing that too, he supposed.

It wasn't until Feathers began to coo and peck at the rocks that Carver realized how agitated she was.

"Oh, don't worry about us, girl," Carver said. "I won't be joining any cults any time soon. Neither will Merrill. It'll take more than some blasted hole in the sky to scare us."

Feathers looked unconvinced.

"Really, girl. I've been to the Frostbacks. It's a hell of a place." He made a face. "No place for a chicken, anyway."

That seemed to finally put her at ease. Carver smiled and tossed her another hunk of bread.

***

One morning, a particularly large lizard had trespassed into Carver and Merrill's shack. It had made off with a slice of bacon – the first meat they'd been able to afford in weeks.Feathers had not taken kindly to the intrusion. She'd squawked at the creature, flapping and diving at it as if she were the Queen's own falcon. Eventually, the lizard had relinquished its prize and skittered away.

From then on, Carver began to find headless lizards around the hovel. In his boots. In their bed. Even at the foot of Merrill's halla statue, like an offering.

"That's disgusting," she said, holding the dead thing by its tail.

"They're _gifts_ ," Carver explained. "She's a hunter. She's hunting."

Merrill glared at him. "She's not a falcon, Carver."

"Of course not. She's better than a falcon," he says, scratching her under the wattle, just where she liked it. "Aren't you, Feathers? Aren't you better than a falcon?"

Feathers stared at him blankly.

Merrill threw up her hands in disgust. "Fine. Just make sure she doesn't leave any more _gifts_ in my elfroot. It's hard enough to find without lizard bits contaminating it."

"Feathers makes no promises," huffed Carver. "When her killer instinct strikes, it must be indulged."

Merrill rolled her eyes.

As soon as her back was turned, Carver slipped Feathers a piece of fruit. With a happy murmur, she tore it clean in half.

***

By Harvestmere, Carver's lyrium sickness had become little more than a memory. He hadn't had dust in almost a year, and he'd recovered enough to heft a sword more days than not. Often he could even muster the trek to Darktown, where Merrill had organized the elven relief efforts in Anders's old clinic. Between his greater mobility and Varric's people sewing up that the hole in the sky, Carver felt that things in Kirkwall were finally starting to return to some semblance of normalcy – or, at least, a new normal.

He should have known it was too good to last.

At the first frost, Sebastian came back, bringing with him torches and drums and an army a thousand strong. He only wanted Anders, or so he claimed. But Anders hadn't been sighted anywhere near Kirkwall in over three years, and even the poorest guttersnipe had heard the gossip about how Sebastian – no, _Prince Vael_ – had begun introducing himself as the Grand Unifier of the Free Marches to the Orlesian court.

As heavy boots clomped through Hightown and the skies once more lit on fire, Carver knew it was time for him to once more join the fight, and with nerves fluttering in his stomach, he opened the dusty chest he kept in the corner.

Inside was a suit of armor and a sunburst shield. Both were dulled from disuse, but they both still smelled, powerfully, of lyrium. Carver breathed it in, and at once, he could hear them all again, a whisper behind his ears: Cullen calling out orders; metal squealing, clanging, sword on dented shield; laughter behind flagons; barracks-side whispers; voices of the lost and dead and long-forgot; and the lyrium, always the lyrium, thrum-thrum-thrumming in his veins, pulsing like a heartbeat, _ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-ba-ba-dum._

Carver swallowed deeply and removed the plate.

"Do you think it still fits?" said Merrill over his shoulder.

"We'll make it fit," he said through gritted teeth.

Merrill nodded, and piece by piece, she helped him don the old kit. It was heavier than he remembered. Bulkier. Smellier. Truth be told, he'd lost his feel for full plate; the old armor clung to him so clumsily that it was a wonder it had ever fit him at all.

When the last piece was in place, Merrill stepped back, but not out of reach. Her hand drifted slowly to her mouth. She stared at the flaming sword on his chest for many heartbeats without speaking.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You look so handsome," she replied.

Carver snorted. "Right. I feel like a ham in a tin can."

"No. You look like a knight in shining armor." She met his eyes. "But you always did, at least to me."

His smirk melted away, and he took her hand. "And you, _ma vhenan,_ one of the elven queens of old," he said earnestly.

Her fingers squeezed his. Then she cleared her throat and let go.

"We have a problem," she said, holding up a saucer-sized piece of plate in her other hand. "There's one piece left over, and I don't know where it goes."

Carver stared at the piece. For the life of him, he couldn't remember either.

There came a clatter by the chest. Both jumped, turning their heads to see Feathers scratching at the canvas. She was apparently attempting to build herself a nest in the dust. Carver's glove was in her beak.

"Good idea, girl," said Carver. "Get comfortable, because you're staying here."

Feathers squawked at him and sat on the glove.

He frowned. "I'm going to need that," he said.

"I don't think she wants to stay," said Merrill. "I think she wants us – well, _you –_ to stay instead."

Carver's eyes softened. "I told you before, girl. We'll be okay. Merrill and I have seen dozens of battles. We'll be fine. We'll be back before you even know it."

"He wouldn't lie," added Merrill. "He's very bad at it."

Feathers clucked at them miserably.

Merrill looked to Carver and Feathers and back again. A smile crept onto her lips.

"I have an idea," she said.

Loosing her pauldrons, she unwound the leather thong binding them and unthreaded it, only to then re-thread it through two holes in the mystery plate. She bent over and tied it behind Feathers's hackles.

Merrill stood and inspected her handiwork. As it turned out, the piece of armor made an excellent breastplate for a chicken, almost as if that had been its purpose all along.

"Now she can come with us," said Merrill, scratching under her wattle.

Feathers nuzzled her hand appreciatively.

Carver smiled. He ought to protest; he ought to force the issue—but how could he? Feathers looked so proud in her armor, puffing out her chest as haughtily as a mabari in full kaddis.

It was ridiculous, really. A chicken in battle armor? It made about as much sense as a Fereldan and a Dalish choosing to repel an invading prince from a blasted out pile of rubble. Or, for that matter, a Templar and a blood mage falling in love.

But, like most things in his life, Carver wouldn't have it any other way.

"Thatta girl," he said. "Let's go save our home. Let's go get our happily ever after."

Feathers clucked in protest.

Carver rolled his eyes. "Fine," he sighed. "Our happily _feathered_ after."


End file.
